Chapter 39

I reached over to her, my pants covered in the blood which I was in, hands shaking. I stroked her cheek with the back of my knuckles. She didn't move. I crawled over to her on my hands and knees and took her into my arms, holding her against me, hating the fact that I could feel how cold she was. The tears were streaming down my face without my will, and as I sat there with her in my arms I let out a scream that I'd never heard from myself. I threw back my head and screamed for the Gods to hear, so that they would all know that I was in pain, that I'd been robbed of my light. The roaring died on my voice and turned to sobbing. I ran a hand through her hair. Part of it wasn't wet, and was clean and I could smell her shampoo. The tears burned in my eyes. I leaned down and kissed her lips, tasting her blood in my mouth when I pulled away.

The crying wouldn't stop as I sat there. Just sitting. Just holding my wife. I rocked back and forth, rubbing her shoulders, feeling her limp in my arms. Her eyes were open, and staring, and yet somehow not empty. Like she was still alive inside her body and could see.

And then I thought of Claudette.

I didn't want to drop Amber. I didn't want to leave her there alone, but I knew I had to, and so kissed her forehead before standing and tripping through the house, wondering where my daughter was. I found her within minutes…and she too…was dead…

"Claudette!!" I cried out her name over and over as I picked her up, her tiny body quite like a jointless doll. I was sobbing, absolutely hysterical, holding her close to me. She hadn't been stabbed, but strangled somehow, and a little trickle of blood came from her mouth. I wiped it away with my sleeve and straightened her hair. All the color was drained from her face, and her eyes were closed. She just looked asleep.

"AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" I couldn't stop screaming. Just screaming, horrified and terrified.

I lost it.

Amber was in the kitchen, and I knew that she was still alive. I knew that she was in her body. And I wanted her to be with her daughter and with me. I carried Claudette back into the kitchen, my way with her as if she were alive. I gathered Amber in my arms as well, carrying them both into the garage to uncover my motorcycle, the one that Mark had bought for me and that I'd barely used. I opened the garage and began to drive out.

It had started to snow again. As I was leaving my driveway I saw more police cars and an ambulance coming. The officer who'd already been at my house, who, though I hadn't been noticing, apparently was standing beside me the whole time I'd been in my house, ran out onto the yard and called after me but I wouldn't have it as I turned and drove down the road behind my house.

They used salt on the roads to keep the snow from freezing on them. It was natural, and so there wasn't enough snow to keep me from driving. The flakes came down and got in my eyes as I drove up the hill, holding my wife and my daughter, squinting my eyes against the cold and the wind. I was freezing. It was completely too cold to be doing what I was doing but I absolutely did not care. And it didn't matter because I had my wife, and my daughter, and we were going up to our special place.

As I was reaching the top of the mountain I lost control of my bike and it skid off the road. It took me a moment to regain myself and I held them against me again, leaving my bike where it was and climbed up to the road, holding both of them. I could see the steeple through the snow, and fought against the wind as I went up there, finally collapsing and sitting down on the concrete base of the chapel.

"Kane…what is this? This is so cool." I sat there, holding the both of them in each of my arms, my head tilting sideways as I looked at Amber, as her hair fell into her face. Claudette was so clean, such an angel, and appeared to be sleeping. I could hear her laughing, high pitched, pure laughter filling my head.

"Claudette…" I held her close to me, imagining that she was sleeping, that at any moment she'd wake and start to pout because she was still tired. And then Amber would laugh and take her and feed her and then kiss me and we'd talk about how much we loved her.

But Claudette didn't wake. And Amber didn't sit up to help me. They both just stayed there, motionless, in my arms, in the chapel, which for some reason I thought would cure it all. Claudette's eyes were closed, and a bit bruised. She had those full, round cheeks which only children have, and a soft pink mouth. She was so beautiful. I knew it then, more than I'd ever realized, how incredibly beautiful she was. And she was my daughter! She was my own creation, mine and Amber's, something that we had made together, and who had her own life. We'd created another life. And now…

"No!! Wake up, Claudette Pearl," I said sternly, as if she were older, as if I were scolding her. I ran my fingers through her hair. "Wake up…" my voice quieted, taken again my sobs. "Claudette…PLEASE!!!" I was screaming and shaking, yelling not words but just…projecting. "For the love of God Claudette wake the fuck up!"

Amber's body shifted against me and I looked down at her, my sobbing stopping for a moment, tears still coming. I sniffled. Her eyes had fallen closed. Blood had dried in her hair and a bit had trickled down the side of her face. Snow was in her hair and on her eyelashes, enchantingly beautiful. The blood on her skin was appearing to freeze. I laid her across my lap and gently wiped it away, barely being able to do it. My hands were shaking now from the cold as well, as I sat there, as it snowed.

"I love you…" I said to her softly. "Amber I love you so much please wake up…" I spoke to her as if my soft words would bring her back, and indeed sat in that chapel as if it could bring her back. I knew that it wasn't true, I knew that it didn't matter what I did. Her body was dead. I couldn't help her.

But her soul was in there, and I knew it. I calmed a little, trying to realize that she didn't have much time and that I needed to be strong for her. The tears still came even though I wasn't sobbing, and I fixed her hair, trying not to look at the large gash in her scalp. I cleaned her face, wiping off the blood. I shifted so that Claudette was sitting down in her lap and no longer in one of my arms. The three of us were together. We were a family. And I wasn't about to let…any DEATH get in the way. Nothing was stronger than my family. I couldn't just let them dying prevent me from being with them.

I know now that I was going crazy at the time. And I remember thinking all of that perfectly logically at the time. But truth is truth, and I knew what I was doing then, just as I know now that I wasn't all there. Or perhaps too much of me was there. I don't know and I don't care to think on it.

Fire.

I thought of fire. I thought of choking on smoke and not being able to see. I remembered reaching out through the smoke to my mother's voice, feeling her grab my arm and pull me close to her as the flames circled us. I thought of the pain I felt, the burning, the desperation. I thought of the next day when Mark held me in his arms and I couldn't find my mother. I remember finding out that she was dead.

"No!" I screamed. "No I'm not going to lose you, too!!" I screamed and sobbed. I choked on my own tears and coughed violently, feeling as though I would hack up one of my lungs.

It was then that I heard the cars, and saw the red lights dancing on the trees around me. There were people coming now. Two ambulances and several police cars. People were around me before I had a chance to think, taking them away. I begged them not to, and they tried to get me to go in one ambulance while they put Amber and Claudette in the other. I begged them to let me stay with them and after a few minutes they realized what I was saying and found in their hearts to let me. I couldn't stop shaking.

I barely remember what happened then. I remember being in the ambulance and crying and ignoring all of them as they put blankets around me and tried to make me warm and were trying to talk to me but I wouldn't listen to them and wouldn't answer them. I remember getting to the hospital a few hours later and not  being able to stop shaking. Then they gave me all kinds of drugs to calm me down and eventually my memory is wiped clear of all that.

That night was spent in the hospital. I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling unbearably empty. I curled up, holding my stomach, beginning to cry again. I wanted my daughter. I wanted my wife.

And I wanted my mask.